Thursday, August 31, 2017

There’s something that I call the “Sinatra Effect”. I once
saw a video clip of Frank Sinatra when he was young and cute and charming and
appealing. This astonished me, for my whole life I only knew Sinatra as old and
ugly and bitter and scary. This disconnect is what I call the Sinatra Effect.

Likewise, I never knew “conservatives” as conserving the
use of government power; nor as prudent rational traditionalists. On the
contrary! They may still be running on that reputation, but most people now
alive never knew them like that. Thus, a Sinatra Effect.

In general the Sinatra Effect afflicts anyone or anything
that outlives its appeal. For instance, Bill Cosby.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Identity
politics are perverse and irrational. For proof of this, consider three people:
Jenner, Dolezal, and myself. Jenner claimed to be a woman in a man’s body. This
defiance of sex-identity was quickly accepted. Dolezal claimed to be black in a
white body. This defiance of race-identity was long debated, then derided.

Now
consider me. I am a billionaire in a thousandaire’s body. By this claim, I defy
the very concept of class identity. I am trans-class!

What’s that? You laugh? Of course you do. Surely I jest!
Everyone knows that money is the realest identity! American society is ready to
transcend sex, but not yet ready to transcend race, and a long way from ready to
transcend class!

So according to identity politics, sex is an artifice, race
is deep, and class is inborn. Isn’t that the reverse of the truth? Isn’t sex
inborn, race skin-deep, and class artificial?

For aren’t you too trans-class? Aren’t you too a billionaire
in a thousandaire’s body?

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

In
another essay I asked why there are no churches that hire their worshippers.
Now I ask why there are no churches that worship weapons.

By
this I do not mean worship of Mars or other war gods; I mean worship of the
weapons themselves, with their godlike power of dealing death. Put a rifle over
the altar, burn incense to a katana, and display other deadly holy relics. The
stained glass is mostly red, everyone is armed, and every sermon is about the
divinity of weapons. It can claim protection under First and Second Amendments!

This would work as a paid-worship
church. The devout walk in, punch their time card, then chant, dance, speak in tongues,
etc.; then punch out their time card and go home; and every second week get
paid.

The worshippers don’t pay, they get paid. Technically, this makes the
worshippers prostitutes; an accusation they embrace. "You sheep get shorn,
but we bitches get paid." In a sense, then, paid worship is a more honest system
than the usual.

Attendance will be good, but where
does the money really come from? The paid-worship church will credit its god.
The check cleared; it's a miracle! The real sources will include untaxed
charity, plutocratic ego, tax-supported welfarism, video and art sales... and
laundering dirty money. The last is where the big bux are, and the hardest to
prove.

Which brings me to the weapons church.
This fits shady dealings like jelly fits peanut butter. Paid-worship might
work; make it a weapons church, and it'll work even better. Any combination of
church, state and market this toxic is bound to be a huge success.

So
I think this can work, at least in a fiction story. Maybe a noir detective
tale; our hero investigates the Church of Coyote, and shocking truths are
revealed. Hmm...